Saturday, March 22, 2008

Willin' (Updated)

I spent the morning loading new music into my ZEN.

The discussion the other day on the Whatever regarding everybody's favorite Beatles tune got me pawing through my library, which led to uploading the complete Beatles portfolio onto the ZEN. Then, as long as I was at it I figured I'd add another couple of gigs of this and that.

Which somehow led to this:

Now I'm not any kind of huge Linda Ronstadt fan, but Willin' is a freakin' great tune. Poor Poor, Pitiful Me is pretty awesome too, but I like Warren Zevon's version better, same with Mohammed's Radio.

So, what else should I load on the ZEN? My library is pretty huge, you name it I probably got it.

Ronstadt's a phenomenal singer. I'm not sure I'd call myself a fan: the only Ronstadt album I own is one she recorded with Emmylou Harris a few years ago (Western Wall--The Tucson Sessions, and I mainly got that because I'm a huge Harris fan. It has an awesome version of Jackson Browne's "For A Dancer" (featuring Neil Young on harmonies, no less) that got me back into Browne's early stuff.

Which (back on topic), if you're in a '70s mood, you might give Browne's first three albums another listen. He started to go downhill when he tried to mainstream into a bigger sound (the Jon Landau-produced The Pretender is about half a good album and about half shite--with the halves sometimes occurring in the same damn song), but his depressive bar ballads about suicidal friends and exes were magnificent.

Really, I dunno what to suggest. You've already filled it with your Dire Straits. What else do you like?

Okay, why was that video so funny? I'm not being sarcastic. I kept laughing and I don't know why.

* * *

Speaking of The Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies is an awesome album.

I have a lot of Nina Simone on my iPod right now. You can't go wrong with Ms. Nina.

On a non-music-type note, I'm probably the last person on Earth to realize that podcasts are great for when you're in the car. I haven't gone too deep or wide thus far: so far I've pretty much only been downloading horror stories from Pseudopod. The same people have an SF version called "Escape Pod" that I haven't had occasion to try yet. Might not be the kind of thing you want on the Zen if you're only really using it in the shop or while you're writing, obviously.

Ooo--Camper Van Beethoven just came up on shuffle play here. There's someone else you should add to the Zen! Seriously, CVB's great.

I'll second the CVB recommendation. Tania is a fine song, and one that I usually play immediately after Roland, since Tania is a Patty Hearst song.

Astrud Bilberto, Ben Folds (love the cover of Bitches Aint Shit), The Clash, and maybe some Lily Allen so you can enjoy the cheeky lyrics. Ok, Lily Allen is probably too pop for you, but Not Big is a pretty funny song. If you're a girl.

Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart is probably the CVB album to start with. Some of the really major CVB classics like "Take The Skinheads Bowling" are from some early indie releases that are worth having--but are (as far as I know) only available in a boxed set (Cigarettes And Carrot Juice--The Santa Cruz Years) unless Amazon or someone has them available for download.

Sweetheart is a great album, and has "Tania" (the track Tania mentioned, fittingly enough) and one of my personal favorites, "She Divines Water" (which was the song that came up on shuffle that led to my bringing up CVB in the first place). Sweetheart is also sort of the album that flirted with mainstream success, so it's a little more accessible.

If you're familiar with the band Cracker, that was kind of a CVB spinoff band when CVB first broke up (they got back together a few years ago), and Cracker's later stuff sounds a lot like CVB (which may seem ironic, but makes sense if you get into the whole long history of it all).

If you like snarky humor and the violin, it's hard to imagine you not liking CVB. Give 'em a shot.

I'm listening to REO Speedwagon right now (*head bows in shame*. Blame 'Horton Hears a Who'). But surprisingly, I like it quite a bit. And I'm on an 80s tangent these days. Remember April Wine? Billy Squire? Eric Johnson? Whitesnake?

How 'bout John Prine? You might like him. And Jimmy Buffett. Some really good stuff there, once you get past the obvious. And (please don't laugh at me) I have a lot of John Denver on my mp3 player.

And of course you can't go wrong with Satchmo, or Ella, or Billie. Duke Ellington. Dizzy. Coltrane. You get the idea...

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Jim Wright is a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and freelance writer. He lived longer in Alaska than anywhere else and misses it terribly. He recently moved to the fetid Panhandle of Florida and lives now in an ancient Cold War bunker of a house surrounded by alligators and rednecks. He's been called the Tool of Satan, but he prefers to think of himself as the Devil's Designated Driver. He is the mind behind Stonekettle Station. You can email him at jim@stonekettle.com. You can follow him on Twitter @stonekettle, or you can join the boisterous bunch he hosts on Facebook at Facebook/Stonekettle. Remember to bring brownies and mind the white cat, he bites. Hard.

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